To achieve greater flexibility with software applications many software developers and architects have adopted the component based approach to software development. This approach allows for development of software components, which expose interfaces that allow applications and other components to access their features. Each component is a discrete component, each with a unique identity.
Although, software components are meant to achieve and provide great flexibility in integrating software components amongst different applications there remain some programming environments, such as block diagram programming environments or simulation programming environments where it is burdensome to integrate a component developed in these environments into software applications, for example Microsoft Excel®. Conventionally when a programmer wishes to integrate a component or even a portion of a component developed in a block diagram programming environment or a simulation programming environment into a software application environment, the programmer must author the source code to perform that integration, have that source code compiled, and then executed by an electronic device to achieve the integration. This process is burdensome for it requires a programmer to author specific source code each time one wishes to integrate a component from block diagram programming environment or a simulation programming environment into a software application environment. Moreover, because the conventional integration process requires one with programming skills, a mere user of the application program with no programming skills would be challenged to integrate the component from block diagram programming environment or a simulation programming environment into a software application environment.